Field Options and Text Information Definition Syntax

When specifying information in the ZMerge Field Specifications and Source and Target Options sections of the connection document, you will need to be familiar with the field and format information described here.

Text fields can be read and written in fixed positions or in floating/delimited positions. Fixed position fields are determined by user-defined start and end or by the length of column definitions. Floating/delimited fields are determined by placement before or after other fields in the ZID file definition.

For input text data, field definitions provide a logical name for data items, decipher special format issues, and specify ultimate destination attributes. For output text data, field definitions define number and date formatting, justification, and literal string values. Allowable text formats are:

Text (converts to and from Notes® simple text or rich text)
Numbers (including currency symbols)
Dates (including time components)

You create a field entry in the ZID file or in the Text Field Specifications area for each field that you want to process.

Field entries are in the form:

<fieldname> TYPE <datatype> <field option <argument>>

where:

<fieldname>

For Source Connection Access

Parentheses around any field name indicate a place holder that you do not want assigned as a field within Lotus Enterprise Integrator® (LEI) in a destination database record. For example, if you are reading a file that includes a field called Publisher which you do not need, use the expression (Publisher) in the fieldname to omit the data.

Note: <fieldname> is the database field name assigned to the data within LEI. The <fieldname> is required.

For Target Connection Access

<fieldname> is the database field name to be extracted to the destination text. If the field name does not exist in the specified input database, then a null value is written to the output file. The <fieldname> is required.

Use parentheses around any field name that you do not expect to be present in the input database. This allows the provisioning of literal strings to the output file.

TYPE defines the field data type as specified by <datatype>. This definition refers to the field that is being translated. You can specify any of the following values for <datatype>. The TYPE is required.


<datatype>	Description
TEXT	Alphanumeric text.
NUMBER [.n]	Numeric text. The [.n] specifies a decimal place when a decimal is NOT present in the source data. If the [.n] is specified, the incoming data should NOT include the decimal point. For example, input data 123.45 would fail whereas 12345 would be formatted in the output as 123.45. The ".n" can be any value in the range 0 to 15. The default is 0, or no decimal digits.
DATETIME	A date/time expression. The date value must be suitable for conversion in the native machine environment.
RICHTEXT	Alphanumeric text.

Above, <field option> is the name of a descriptive field option which provides additional information about the field being read or written. The <field option> is not required.

Some field options also use <arguments> to further define the data field.

You can define multiple field options/arguments for each input field. Leave a blank space between any field option or argument.

For text input, the location of the field in the input data is critical. The location of an input field is either fixed (at the same place in every input record) or floating (input data is a stream of fields separated by special delimiters).

Note: There is a limitation on how Lotus® Connectors interpret a Notes® NUMBER field. When you use the "Create Target Metadata" option from an Notes® source, heavy precision loss may occur with Notes® NUMBER fields.

Note: You can add ZID comment entries to a ZID script by beginning a line (the first position in a line) in the ZID script with a semicolon. For example, the following statement is a valid ZID comment entry:

; This ZID file describes the monthly update